When you’ve been set up to lose everything you love, what is there left to fight for?
As the day dawns on the fiftieth annual Hunger Games, fear grips the districts of Panem. This year, in honor of the Quarter Quell, twice as many tributes will be taken from their homes.
Back in District 12, Haymitch Abernathy is trying not to think too hard about his chances. All he cares about is making it through the day and being with the girl he loves. When Haymitch’s name is called, he can feel all his dreams break. He’s torn from his family and his love, shuttled to the Capitol with the three other District 12 tributes: a young friend who’s nearly a sister to him, a compulsive oddsmaker, and the most stuck-up girl in town. As the Games begin, Haymitch understands he’s been set up to fail. But there’s something in him that wants to fight . . . and have that fight reverberate far beyond the deadly arena.
The Second Prequel to the World-Renown Trilogy
I unfortunately cannot exactly remember or trace back when I read the original trilogy of The Hunger Games as it must have been before starting my blog. I initially saw the first movie and still remember a lot of details around this experience, which means I was really taken by it and certainly shocked by the amount of brutality and even gore. After that, I must have read all three books before or in between the other movies. I also remember watching all four movies eventually in a cinema marathon and loving but also hating the last one for all the emotional damage.
After that, my engagement with the fandom was not done but continued for a while with a fanfiction I wrote online. But over the years, I didn’t keep too much track of the developments anymore, only watched the fifth movie when it came out. Remembering the great but also shattering experiences I made while reading the books, I wanted to relive this before watching the soon airing sixth movie. Therefore, I suggested this book at the book club and eventually read it within 4ish days. I was not only sick but also really taken by the world once more.
Our Well-known Protagonist
The benefit of the prequels that Suzanne Collins has written is that we already know her protagonists quite well, or imagine to. Snow was definitely more of a surprise to many than Haymitch in this one. I certainly still want to read „A Ballad of Snakes and Songbirds,“ now that I am hooked by the world again. Haymitch’s story was maybe even better known to the fact that we knew he was a winner and succeeded in a game of double the number of tributes. Besides that, we could only imagine he once had a family that lived through his reaping and might also have had a love to cry for him when watching his games. To have these details filled in was a pleasure and an emotional rollercoaster.
Starting this book, we are prepared for heartbreak, for allyships made and seen shattered, for loss and manipulation, all caused by the horrific system in Panem. We certainly got all of this but also an interesting take on media and narratives as well as implicit submission and resistance in big and small acts. Suzanne Collins therefore not only broadens the world of Panem and its stories but leaves us with important commentary on today’s societal and international issues.
Horrifying, Heartbreaking, but also Less Intense
I cannot really pinpoint what made the difference for me—maybe everything happening in the world right now—but somehow, I was not as moved by some events as I wished to be. Maybe it was also the fact that the pattern of the hunger games is already known. Nonetheless I enjoyed the new takes we got on it and the focus on propaganda above the cruelty in the hunger games themselves. I loved Haymitch’s allies, but their deaths did not shatter me like I expected them to. *SPOILER* Only his homecoming was truly grinding me down, as I kept up the hope for some kind of happy ending. *SPOILER END*
Overall, I was more fascinated—than horrified—by the structural exploitation of the tributes for entertainment and the brainwashing of the capitol staff. I certainly loved meeting already known characters in a younger version of themselves and encountering some people I only later understood would be quite essential to the stories we already know. In a lot of ways, this book cleverly fills in some blank spaces while also expanding our knowledge and familiarity with not only the world of Panem but also societal structures that we can recognize in our own world.
In conclusion,
This prequel was another masterpiece written by an author who only seems to write when she has something to say. Her stories not only offer individual and emotional tales of challenges, sacrifice, loss, love, and resistance, but also reflect on contemporary circumstances and structures we should as much question and challenge as our protagonists in his world. Her writing style might not be considered highly literary but certainly fits its target group.
The author:
In 1991, Suzanne Collins began her professional career writing for children’s television. She worked on the staffs of several Nickelodeon shows, including the Emmy-nominated hit Clarissa Explains it All and The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo. For preschool viewers, she penned multiple stories for the Emmy-nominated Little Bear and Oswald. […] The Hunger Games, is a dystopian war story composed of five books, including the initial trilogy of The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay, and two prequels, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and Sunrise on the Reaping. It’s spent over eight years to date on The New York Times bestseller list since publication in September 2008, and has also appeared consistently on USA Today and Publishers Weekly bestseller lists. An international bestseller, it has been sold in 55 languages. October 1, 2024, saw the publication of the first book in the illustrated series with art by Nico Delort. Recent audio books in English are read by Tatiana Maslany (The Hunger Games Trilogy) and Santino Fontana (The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes). Sunrise on the Reaping, read by Jefferson White, won the 2026 Audie Awards Audiobook of the Year. All five are New York Times Audio Children’s bestsellers. More